Queer as Queen
by Elah
Summary: Kaeleer is a magical place. If one has magic. Brian doesn't. Fortunately. If he had, his inability to submit to a queen would have been noticed long ago. At the moment, he is safe. But the flesh is weak, and Brian's will betray him, irrevocably.


This story borrows from two sources, Showtime's TV show _**Queer as Folk** _and Anne Bishop's fantasy novel series _**The Black Jewels** _trilogy. I've taken a few characters from QAF and placed them into the world of Bishop's creation. At the time I wrote the main part of this story, Bishop had not yet published _Dreams Made Flesh _in which she defines the Blood society as tolerant of homosexuality; therefore, I have taken the liberty of turning to a different path.

**  
Queer as Queen**

_Two men, both have a secret to protect. They have been careful. They know that they will lose everything, including their lives, if their secret is ever discovered by those who think of them as enemies. But what can a man do when there is a temptation far too strong to resist? _

_Two men, both have a Queen to protect. They have been careful. They both know that they could lose everything, including their reason to live, if they can not expose the secrets of their Queen's enemies. But what can a man do when there is a mystery far too strong to resist?_

_  
**The Lurker**_

A man stood in the shadows of a secluded gateway. He was slowly stroking his cock through his pants. His breath was heavy, his pupils dilated, his blood rushing in his veins. There was nothing else he could do; he could not help himself. His weakness was so much stronger than him. His hand shook as he slipped it inside his pants. He jerked himself off quickly and leaned against the planks of the gate as he waited for his world to come back together.

The man glanced around with trepidation. He must not get caught. He must not draw attention to himself. His reaction to the men he had been talking with a moment ago would not be understood or accepted. If anyone noticed his sexual interest in another man he would be very lucky if he was not killed or maimed, but there was not a chance his good reputation could survive; of that there was no hope at all.

He was lucky this time. Nobody had noticed. But how much longer could his luck last? He had been supplying to the court of Lady Angelline for thirteen years. For a Blood male not wearing jewels he had managed well. Lady Angelline was the most respected Queen in Kaeleer, the Shadow Realm. He had worked hard to reach the position he held. The competition had been cruel. Lady Angelline's court resided at SaDiablo Hall, which was the main estate of her family. The head of the family was the Warlord Prince of the Dhemlan Territory of Kaeleer, and the family owned a wide region in the territory, several villages among other holdings. Handling of the sales of the products of the villages was respected and profitable work. He had been selected to market the products of Halaway, the village nearest to the Hall itself. He loved his work and the life he had been able to build for himself despite his humble origins and lack of power among the Blood. Regardless, he was again and again endangering his achievements. The main problem was the two men he had been talking to earlier.

Chaosti, the Gray Jeweled Warlord Prince of the Dea al Mon Territory of Kaeleer, with his slender and sinewy build, long silver hair and delicate features was a beautiful man. He was also a strong man without a trace of weakness about him. His delicate looks hid his physical strength, but nothing hid his psychic strength, his Grey strength; the Gray jewels attached to his pendant and ring were glittering with the reservoir power in them. And nothing could have hidden his temper, the explosive temper of a Warlord Prince. He was a serious temptation; all that power worked like a magnet. Of course, he was also completely out of reach. He was the consort of the Queen of the Dea al Mon. Nobody could compete with a Queen for the affection of a Warlord Prince. Warlord Princes felt a compulsive need to bond with a Queen. All Blood males had that need, the need to bond with a Blood female. Every single male seemed to have that need, except for him, the man lurking in the shadows.

If Prince Chaosti had been alone the lurker would have been able to control his urges. He had done so in the past. He had been able to wait until he was alone in his home, until he was safe while attempting to get some relief for his need. But Prince Chaosti was not alone, no, he was with Daemon Sadi, Lady Angelline's consort and the one and only Black Jeweled Warlord Prince.

The lurker was unable to control his lust around Sadi. That was not unheard of despite the fact that the Blood were heterosexuals to the extent that there was not a word for the concept of homosexual of either sex in any of their languages.

Daemon Sadi was a living legend. Before the mysterious psychic maelstrom a century earlier that had swiped through the three Realms and destroyed a great number of the Blood in each of them, he lived in the realm of Terreille. The Blood had been created to become the caretakers of the three realms, Kaeleer, Terreille and Hell. The Blood, however, had slowly been tainted by greed, and a large number of them had abandoned their true purpose in the world. Two Red Jeweled Priestesses were the cause of the taint. Both of them had the life span of a long-lived race of the Blood, about 5,000 years. They, first one, then the other, had found followers in every one of the Realms, people as ambitious and greedy as themselves. With the assistance of these followers the women had weakened the Blood societies. They had destroyed the Queens and any strong Blood females and males that could have fought against them and might thwart them from their goal, namely to reign supreme in all the three Realms.

In Terreille, the situation was the worst. A descendant of a long-lived race himself, Daemon Sadi had lived in inhuman cruelty for 1,700 years. His only protection was his dark power, the Black. The tainted rulers of Terreille underestimated his power. They knew he was strong, but he did not let anybody know how extreme his power really was. The rulers wanted to breed Sadi to reinstall strong bloodlines in Terreille, the bloodlines they themselves had destroyed. Therefore, they put restraints on Sadi but did not mutilate him or take his life as a punishment for his insubordination. Sadi fought against them in every way he was capable of, and the most effective weapon Sadi had at his disposal was his sex appeal. He was a man that was able to seduce anyone, he could make needy fools out of the most devious of persons, make anyone lower his or her defenses. And when he was inside those defenses…

Nobody was immune to the sex appeal of Daemon Sadi. Women fell for him were they young or old, wise or foolish, experienced or innocent. Men found themselves drowning in lustful thoughts that left them confused and scared. In order to keep the number of the lusting crowd at an endurable level, Sadi kept tight control on his sexuality. To describe Daemon Sadi as a handsome and beautiful man would be the same as to describe the sun as a yellow and bright lamp. Like the sun, Sadi was a force of nature.

To the lurker in the shadows Daemon Sadi was a temptation far outside of his capability to resist. Usually his self control was adequate. He had needed to control and hide his reactions to appealing males from his early teens when his sexual orientation had started to emerge. He never told anybody about his fascination for his male companions nor would he have acted on it. To tell would have made him a pariah in the Blood society. The beliefs of the Blood held that a person like him was an aberration, a disturbing phenomenon. Homosexuals were extremely rare and were believed to be a possible danger. There were religious prejudices against them; the most pious claimed that homosexuals did not respect the Darkness as a person should. By the most suspicious minds homosexuality was said to be a consequence of tainted blood; the worst that could be said of any of the Blood. In consequence, anyone so tainted could be declared a rogue and lose his or her position and connections among the Blood. Even the family ties could be severed. Those that were not particularly religious judged homosexual men because they did not surrender themselves to the Queens and other females as the Blood males were supposed to do. They declared male homosexuals as rogues because of their rebellious nature. If a female was homosexual she was also considered a danger to the current order. The Blood societies were centered around females, the Queens. The relations between the Queen and the males that served her had always a somewhat sexual flavor about them. That was an inbred feature of the Blood. To act in a blood society was to participate in a delicate dance between genders and individuals, considering that the Blood were temperamental creatures. In that dance a homosexual woman was a risk of dissonance, and courts were not willing to take a risk of that.

If people had found out the lurker's secret when he was just a youth his at best meager possibilities to achieve a good life for himself would have been lost from the outset. The family the lurker was born to was a humble one. His parents lived in the territory called Glacia in Kaeleer. His father was a Blood male originally from Hayllia in Terreille who wore no jewels. Like the lurker's, his son, the man's psychic power was not strong enough to hold even the White. He worked as a field worker for a Queen of a little village and resented his lowly position in the Blood society. His acquired skills were not enough to compensate for the weakness of his psychic strength. The lurker's mother was one of the hearth witches of the village Queen. She wore the Yellow Jewels which made the man proud but also envious; her position in the society was higher than his. Together the two did not live. There was no love or any other kind of affection between them.

The lurker's mother acknowledged her son's father right after the boy's birth. The father was proud of the son with a jeweled woman at first, but he came to regret his fatherhood later. As was the custom of the Blood, the first seven years of his life the lurker lived with his mother and met his father regularly. After the Birthright Ceremony on the child's seventh birthday, the father of an acknowledged male child was required to take his son to live with him and raise him. When the lurker came out of his Birthright Ceremony not worthy of wearing jewels his father's disappointment knew no boundaries. Against his expectations, the son was not his way out of triviality. From that day on, his son became a target for his frustrated anger. The father spoke to his son through the strikes of his fists, the kicks of his feet. The mother that had sacrificed seven precious years of her life to tend for the child was happy with her freedom, happy that her responsibility was finally over. She did not want anything to do with her son anymore. The son never understood why his parents treated him so, hurt him so badly.

In the beginning of his life, the lurker's chances were far from promising, but he had managed to get out of the triviality that had become his father's prison. The lurker had a brilliant mind, and his talents were for trade. He had put his talents to good use. At the age of thirty-five, he was in as good a position as was available for a male of his meager psychic strength. But he was in danger to lose it all. He knew his secret would be exposed someday; only thing he was uncertain of was when that would happen. And he knew that the most likely reason for that catastrophe to happen was his inability to control himself in the proximity of Daemon Sadi.

To resign from his job was not an option, not even if that would take him far from Sadi. Nobody would believe that he, of his own free will, gave up his position as a business associate with the court of Lady Angelline. He would loose his good reputation; rumors would take care of that. The lurker was trapped by a snare of his own making.

The Warlord Princes had left the courtyard, and the lurker had collected himself enough to carry on with his work. As he approached his men, he was greeted by his foreman.

"There you are, Brian. We have the loading of the barrels completed and are ready to go. We were just waiting for you to reappear," the man said.

_  
**Irresistible**_

A team of workers was sitting in the shadow that was cast by a cart loaded with barrels of the finest wine the village of Halaway produced. The day was hot, and the men deserved this little break in their work. Water level in the bottles they circulated among themselves was receding rapidly. As soon as their boss would show up again they would be going. The day was far from over. They had the unloading of the barrels waiting for them at their destination, the SaDiablo Hall, and only after completing that task could they head back for their own village and their homes.

The foreman of the team, Cynric Radford, a Purple Dusk Jeweled Warlord from Halaway, watched the clouds sailing above. They were tall and white; the possibility of a thunderstorm was high that afternoon. He hoped his boss would come and send them on their way, but the man was nowhere to be seen.

In the courtyard, in addition to Cyn and his team, there were just two Warlord Princes, the exotic Dea al Mon Prince Chaosti and the breathtaking Hayllian Prince Daemon Sadi. Cyn's boss had briefly talked with the Princes before he disappeared. Whatever the dealings had been about, they were done, and the Princes were leaving. They mounted their horses, magnificent beasts, and trotted down the road towards which Cyn hoped very soon to steer his carts.

Cyn had met the Princes several times before. If it had been just Prince Chaosti he would have gone to greet the man. Of course, he had nothing to do with the high and mighty like the Dea al Mon man, but, regardless of his power and position, Prince Chaosti was always polite and never petty when dealing with his inferiors. But Daemon Sadi was a different matter. There was something about Sadi that made Cyn feel self-conscious, nervous even, whenever he was dealing with the man. He always felt flustered afterwards. The man was every bit as polite and considerate as Prince Chaosti, it was nothing in his attitudes or behavior, but Cyn did feel anxious around Sadi. For that reason, he had opted not to approach either of the men this time.

At last Cyn saw his boss approaching. "There you are, Brian," he said. "We have loaded the barrels and are ready to go. We were just waiting for you to reappear."

Cyn felt the corners of his mouth curling into a smile. For whatever reason, he always felt like smiling around Brian Kinney. He couldn't find one single reason why his mood should lighten up around his boss, but it happened unerringly every time. The man was surely a sight easy on the eye, but his appreciation of the fact should not make him feel lighthearted. It was dangerous to be attracted to a man. Cyn kept his appreciation of Brian's good looks to himself. He did not doubt that, at the very least, he would lose his job if Brian found out his unnatural interest. The fact that Brian never in a million years would answer his feelings should have hampered his good mood further, but it did not. As always, Cyn felt his blood quicken as he thoughtfully regarded his handsome boss who had stopped just a step from him to give orders to the drivers.

Brian was tall, about the same height as Cyn himself, but more delicate of frame. Cyn had broad shoulders, and his muscles were prominent. Brian was more slender, but Cyn knew by experience that the man was as strong as him, regardless. There was nothing unnecessary about him, and there was nothing necessary missing: Brian had a perfect body. The man had the grace of a feline, a silent proficient predator, all lean supple strength. His face was a perfect match for his perfect body. Brian did not possess the perfection of the cold beauty of Daemon Sadi. No, Brian's beauty was more subtle, less aggressive. While it was obvious that both of the men were Hayllians by origin, there were differences. Both of them had the warm golden-brown tone of skin and gold eyes of the Hayllian people, but Brian's tones were somewhat lighter. Sadi had the straight and black hair of the Hayllian breed, but Brian's hair was brown with reddish highlights and a bit wavy. The beauty of Sadi's features was in the clarity of lines and the balance of proportions. Perfection. Brian's features were not perfectly proportioned. His eyes were a bit close to each other in his quite broad face. His jaw line was a very strong feature in the face that lacked other prominent features. But Brian's imperfections made him more human, warmer. Something of the softness his face had when he was a boy was still there in the face of the man; in Sadi's face there was none. But Brian's beauty could not explain Cyn's lightness of heart around him, at least not alone, since there were a lot of beautiful men that did not brighten his day.

If Brian would have been a lighthearted and friendly person Cyn would not have wondered at his swings of mood around him. However, Brian was anything but lighthearted. He was a fair employer and paid well, but only for work well done. He had no tolerance for carelessness or laziness in his workers. If he was not satisfied with one's work he let one know in certain terms. He did not handle his men with velvet clad hands, quite the contrary: his words could make the most thick skinned man cringe. He would wait for a person to learn the skills a job required, but he demanded that the person learned quickly. He had no qualms about firing a man who was incapable or unwilling to meet with his standards. Brian's men were not Brian's friends, but he had their respect.

Cyn did not know if Brian had friends. The man kept his personal life strictly apart from his work, what there was of such. Brian was at work when Cyn arrived in the morning, and he still sat in his office when he left in the evening. He had been called to work at on weekends. Brian was there all those times, and Cyn got the feeling that Brian had been working for hours before Cyn was alerted to help. What personal life could the man have if he always was at work?

Cyn held the belief that his boss was a very lonely man, and Cyn had plenty of reasons for his belief. Brian let nobody close without a fight, for he trusted in no one. He treated every person with suspicion. Most often that suspicion made him take the initiative in confrontations. He did not wait and see whether people turned against him or not; he expected that from people as default. Brian used his intelligence to keep his associates at arms length. He made sarcastic remarks that left the other feeling irritated at best, suspecting they had been made fools of at worst.

At first, when Cyn had started to work for Brian, he had thought it impossible to go on working with the man. He had been at the receiving end of Brian's sarcasm too often. Any mistake earned him a verbal bashing. Brian was moody and short-tempered, and nothing seemed to satisfy the man. Several times he had gone to Brian's office to give in his notice, but every time he stepped out of the office the notice still in his hand, forgotten.

Cyn couldn't give any explanation why he never went through with his intent to hand in his notice to Brian. As soon as he met the man something else was in his mind. If Brian was having a good day Cyn most likely found himself hunting for ideas to improve the performance of some part of the business. If Brian was having one of his moody days anything could happen. He could be ripped apart for any blunder he or any other of the workers had done. He could be fired for the most trivial of reasons, which always made him fight to get his work back, regardless of the fact that he had come to the office to quit. Brian might take him to his work and show him step by step how it should be done and stay with him until he learned to do it to his satisfaction. Cyn came out of these encounters rattled, but he always forgot to quit his job.

Brian was an impossible person to work with, but Cyn would not have it any other way. He loved to hate his boss. He hated to feel attracted to the disparaging man. And more than anything else, Cyn hated to see his boss dispirited like he was at the moment.

It did not happen often that Brian lost the fire that seemed to be driving him from inside, that he lost the light shining through his golden eyes flecked with green. Cyn shook his head irritably. He should stop staring at his boss. When the shine in Brian's eyes dimmed, there was invariably something seriously amiss with him or with his business. Since Brian had just talked with the representatives of their most important customer, the court of Lady Angelline, there was a great possibility that the business was in some serious trouble.

"Boss, is something wrong?" he asked showing his concern clearly.

"No."

Brian's curt answer did not offend Cyn. The curt answer in itself told him what he needed to know: something personal was bothering his boss. If it had been something related to the business Brian would have told him what the problem was. If that had been the case Brian would have expected Cyn to help him with the problem. But Brian never let anything slip about his personal affairs.

But surely there was a reason for Cyn to worry. The shine disappeared from Brian's eyes because of his dealings with the two Warlord Princes. What had happened between them and Brian? If either of the two princes turned against Brian the man without any shred of jeweled power was as good as a corpse. Warlord Princes had volatile tempers, and any whiff of danger to their queen made that temper erupt. Cyn did not really believe that the Princes would see Brian as a threat to their queens, but if they did, nothing would save Brian.

Then Cyn gasped. There was a threat that might make the Warlord Princes take Brian as liability: Cyn himself. Did the Warlord Princes have a suspicion that he was interested in his own kind? Cyn felt cold sweat rise on his forehead.

"Let's go, Cynric, we've got work to do." Brian's hand on his arm halted Cyn's train of thought. He turned to the carts without a word.

The two men walked to the carts, and the drivers urged their animals to start moving towards SaDiablo Hall.

_  
**Raindrops In Your Hair**_

The distance from Halaway to SaDiablo Hall was not great; most of the time it took the carts just a little more than an hour to get there. This time, however, an hour was too much. They had traveled just one half of the distance when the weather took a rapid turn for the worse. The tall white clouds developed into dark thunderheads, and the wind picked up. Every man knew that they would get rain pouring down their necks very soon. They increased their pace, but it did take just minutes until the clouds burst open. The road seemed to turn into a shallow stream between one step and the next. The hard wind threw the heavy drops of rain at them. Wherever the drops landed they felt like pebbles. It was miserable going for the men and their animals alike.

"Boss, there's a barn just a little bit further, just behind that bend," a man cried to Brian over the rush of the rain, pointing forward with his arm.

"Are you sure?" Brian asked with renewed vigor. He sheltered his eyes with his hand while trying to see through the heavy rain. The man nodded with assurance. "Good. We'll take cover there. Let's go."

Soon the carts rolled around the bend in the road, and the promised barn appeared within their sight from behind the misty veils of rain. In hopes of finding a shelter very soon the men urged their animals to increase their step. Soon enough, Brian and Cynric were close enough to ride ahead of the carts and check out the barn.

The two men rode to the open doors, dismounted, and stepped inside of the shadowy barn. They were welcomed with an aggrieved snort. Brian came into an abrupt stop when he collided against a male body. They were not alone.

"Mother Night! Where did you come from?" a startled voice asked from the darkness an inch or two away from Brian's left ear. In his hurry to untangle himself from the man, Brian almost fell on his ass.

As soon as he found his footing again, Brian squinted at the dark but could only detect the dim outlines of two horses further back. "Uh-, sorry for rushing in like that. Who are you?" he said hesitantly.

"It's just us, Sadi and me, Chaosti. We were caught in the storm, too. You've got two carts, haven't you, Brian?" the second voice came from somewhere to Brian's right.

Brian nodded assuming that the Princes were not as blind as he was.

"Lead them in," Prince Chaosti went on. "There's enough room in here."

Nodding again, Brian stepped back out, Cynric hard on his heels. They were just in time to motion the carts to drive in.

Cynric followed the carts inside, but Brian stayed where he was. The lashing rain did nothing to distract Brian from his emotional upheaval. What he had just done, in essence, was that he had dropped himself on Daemon Sadi's lap. He was tingling all over.

It was a brief touch, just a light push really. It was over almost before it had started. Nevertheless, Brian could not shake the experience from his mind. It had felt so good, the warmth of another man against him. No, not just another man; he was very well aware of it being Daemon Sadi he had touched. If he had touched Cynric - he had touched Cynric many times - if it had been him Brian would not be standing out in the rain feeling the tingle moving towards his genitals. Touching Sadi did not feel like touching a friend, nothing like touching a friend. Brian's cheeks were hot enough to turn the water on them into steam.

He was getting hard. He must not get hard, not now. Not here. Not in front of his men, not in front of the Princes. Brian willed himself to behave, but he did not. He could not control his reaction. What could he do? Escape. The only way out of his predicament was to escape.

Brian was just turning to start towards the rain soaked road as a hand landed on his shoulder.

"Why are you standing here, in the rain, Brian? Come on in."

Brian started to shiver as he heard the friendly voice of Prince Chaosti. The other irresistible man so close to him did not help. He did not make the conscious decision to start walking away from the situation, but, as he tried to move away, Prince Chaosti swung him around.

"What's wrong-" the man started to say, but, as the Prince studied Brian, he found the very prominent thing that was wrong. In a heartbeat the friendly hand on his shoulder became a vice. The friendly face in front of Brian hardened into a mask as hard as ice and as cold.

"Chaosti!" Daemon Sadi yelled as he dashed out of the barn. When he saw his friend's face he came to an immediate stop. "What's wrong?" he asked very quietly.

"That man," Prince Chaosti snarled pointing at Brian, "wants me. In. His. Bed." His Gray Jewel glowed without any warmth.

Daemon Sadi turned around to look at Brian. Suddenly, the air was full of snowflakes, and the puddles on the ground froze over. Sadi's golden eyes became glazed as Brian's wet clothes and hair turned into a prison of ice.

_  
**The Beast**_

Inside of the barn, while waiting for the storm to pass, Cyn had been talking with the men of his work crew. When Daemon Sadi suddenly rushed out, he followed more carefully. If there was some danger about, there was nothing he with his Purple Dusk Jewel could do that, with his Gray, Prince Chaosti could not do more effectively, not to mention Sadi with the Black. And he knew full well that he, a mere Warlord, as a defender, was nowhere close to the effectiveness of a Warlord Prince in the protective mode.

Cyn stepped out of the door and stuttered to a stop. He looked from Prince Chaosti's icy eyes to Sadi's glazed ones and gasped. _Mother Night_, he thought, _they have both risen to the killing edge, and their enemy is Brian!_

The thought had barely time to form. Cyn had barely time to recall what he knew about Warlord Princes riding the killing edge before he forgot it all. He forgot that a Warlord Prince was a law unto himself; he forgot that a Warlord Prince riding the edge saw everybody else but the person he was protecting as an enemy; and he forgot that a Warlord Prince riding the edge had only one method of dealing with an enemy: he killed them. All of that lost its meaning as he himself rose to the killing edge.

Cyn had no previous experiences of what lay under his civilized surface. In order to rise to the killing edge, if compared with Warlord Princes, mere Warlords needed a way more compelling reason, and, since he had lived in a little peaceful village all his life and had never had a significant somebody to protect, Cyn had never felt the urge. But he felt it now. It was like a living thing inside of him: the need to protect, the need to defend, the need to tear apart anyone who threatened his Brian.

Through a blood red haze Cyn saw his enemies, Chaosti and Sadi. The enemy stood in between him and his Brian. Unacceptable. A couple of steps and he was where he needed to be. The enemy would get to his Brian only through him. The enemy would not get through; his Brian would not die, could not die. He could not imagine the world without his Brian.

A mere Warlord against two Warlord Princes, a mere Purple Dusk against a Gray and the Black. If seen from the logical point of view it was a pathetic excuse of a battle. Cyn had no chance to win; Brian had no chance to live. But for a Blood male riding the killing edge there was no logic. There was just the overwhelming need to protect, to kill. And the reasons for stepping down from the edge were few. Any attempt of curbing the power of a Warlord Prince riding the killing edge led to an even more determined attempt to kill the adversary as well as anyone who tried to stop that killing.

The three beasts were a heartbeat away from the leap at the throat of the enemy. Another heartbeat and it would all be over.

_  
**Throwing Caution to the Winds**_

Lady Jaenelle Angelline pulled open the door to the room in which her father worked most often these days.

"Papa?" she called.

This time, however, the room was empty. She shook her head in annoyance. She should have sent a message to him on a psychic thread. There was no time for this delay. She had thought that it would be as quick to go to him in person since she had been in the room next to this one, but she should have known better.

_Papa? _Jaenelle sent out on a Red psychic thread.

The answer was immediate. _Witch-child? You sound concerned. What can I do for you? _

_The Darkness needs her Prince. There's no time to lose. If we're too late something very precious will be lost for how long I don't know. We must hurry. _

_Where to?_

_Where are you? I'll come and get you._

As soon as Jaenelle got the whereabouts of her father, she caught the Red winds and rode hard the distance to the place. He met her on the landing web; they were ready to move on right away. Jaenelle brushed against the first inner barrier of his mind and, after being permitted to enter, gave him the mental image of the place where they needed to be.

"Catch the Black winds, Papa. We need every second we've got," she said urgently. Her father pulled her into his arms, and they vanished from the Realm of Kaeleer to appear at the level of the strongest of the psychic winds between the three realms.

_What's this about, Jaenelle? _her father asked as soon as they were heading to the right direction. _Saw something in a tangled web, didn't you?_

_Yes. A warning that if we're not there something wonderful will be lost. We must be there._

_I would never doubt your visions, Jaenelle. I'm not sure if even the Queen of the Weavers of Dreams is as strong a Black Widow as you are. If it's possible we'll be there in time._

_Papa. When we land you must curb Daemon's power the best you can. He must not use his power. If he does, too much will be lost._

_Oh, witch-child,_ her father bewailed. Jaenelle saw his jaw tighten, and the anguish he was feeling showed in his eyes. _I have made wishes to Darkness of it never coming to this._

_I'm so sorry, Saetan. I'm so sorry. _They both knew what Jaenelle was asking from him: Daemon was the stronger of the two.

_  
**The Queen**_

Brian did not notice the cold that made his body tremble in its icy prison. He had only thoughts for the three men in front of him. The two Warlord Princes who were determined to see him dead chilled his blood, but it was the fact that Cynric, his friend and employee, was standing in between the Princes and him that filled his heart with dread. He wanted to push his friend aside, but he knew that it was too late. When a non-jeweled person like him felt the power rising from the abyss the power was all but unleashed. There was no chance he would be in time. In a heartbeat he would see his friend die because of him. There was not yet enough moisture in his eyes for one single tear, but Brian's heart was already bleeding.

Suddenly two people appeared in his field of sight. Before he could begin to interpret the appearance, Prince Chaosti unleashed his Gray power on Cynric.

"Chaosti, attend," someone said. The midnight in that female voice was frightening enough to be sublime.

A man fell on his knees, but it was not Cynric; it was the Prince. As Brian wondered what had happened, he felt an immense dark power rising at his right where Daemon Sadi was.

"Daemon. Leash it. _Mother Night, son!_" a male voice grunted from Brian's left.

Brian turned his eyes to the source of the male voice and thought he was seeing things. There was another Daemon Sadi standing with a woman. Then he felt the same immense dark power rising also at that Sadi's side.

"Daemon," the midnight voice ordered. "Leash it, Daemon."

The Sadi on Brian's right turned slowly to look at the woman beside the other Sadi.

"Leash it, Daemon," the woman repeated in her sepulchral tones.

"Jaenelle," the Sadi at Brian's right sighed. "Only for you, Lady."

The woman, Jaenelle, walked into the waiting arms of the Sadi on Brian's right. The other Sadi smiled like a benevolent father at the two. Then he went to Prince Chaosti and helped him up.

"Come in from the rain, puppies," the man said and walked inside the barn himself.

Jaenelle pushed the Sadi in her arms gently at arms length and then, in the wake of the other Sadi, pulled the man inside. Prince Chaosti followed them. Cynric turned to look at Brian. They looked at each other for a moment, then Cynric turned away and walked in too. Brian took first a deep breath and then a tentative step on his trembling legs and, when he found that he was able, followed the others in. He had nothing to lose anymore. Not even the hard on that had landed him in trouble.

The men of Brian's work crew looked at the people now crowding the barn, befuddled. They were wearing expressions that varied from a mild confusion to a full-blown dumbfoundedness. Whatever they were saying Brian did not hear a word. He looked resignedly at the powerful people in front of him. One of the Sadis had an arm around the Jaenelle woman, the other was standing beside Prince Chaosti.

"I've put a Black aural shield around us," the Sadi close to Prince Chaosti said.

"Who are you?" Brian blurted out before he could control his tongue. "Which one of you is Daemon Sadi?"

"I'm Daemon Sadi," said the Sadi who had his arm around the woman, "the other is my father, Saetan Daemon SaDiablo."

Brian felt the ground disappear from under his feet. _Saetan. _He was looking at Saetan. He could not be looking at Saetan. Brian could not wrap his mind around the thought of Saetan standing in a nondescript barn with him, sheltering from a storm. _Mother Night and may the Darkness be merciful. _Saetan was the Prince of Darkness, the High Lord of Hell, the ruler of the dead. But he had been all that before his death, 50,000 years ago.

"But-" Brian and Cynric both started, and they both found it impossible to go on.

"Papa is a guardian, one of the living dead," Jaenelle said as if she were talking about something as common as a potato. "But we have more important things to deal with. There is something in here that must not be destroyed. The Darkness wants that something to live and thrive. Since it was these two men that you, Daemon, and Chaosti were about to kill when Papa and I arrived I think it is one of them that I saw in the tangled web."

"That one is oriented to bed his own gender." Prince Chaosti pointed his accusing finger at Brian. "He can not be trusted, Lady."

Brian saw Cynric stiffen and turn away from him at that revelation. _One friend less, _he thought, _so be it._ There would be nothing left of his life anyway when this was all done. He swiped the feeling of regret quickly under the carpet of the least visited room of his mind.

While the Lady Jaenelle admonished Prince Chaosti for his unforgiving attitude, both Daemon Sadi and his father - Brian could not even in his thoughts call the man Saetan - kept studying him, Brian. He felt like a worm under the glow of those two sets of identical dissecting golden eyes. As if that was not enough, first Sadi and then also his father came to stand almost too close to him. They smelled him; he could have bet on it. Despite the vicinity of the two extremely desirable men, for once, Brian was not excited. He felt awkward as hell. Uh, not Hell. What the hell. He blushed.

"Jaenelle," Sadi said hesitantly, "there's something odd about this one, Brian Kinney."

"What do you mean, Daemon? What is odd?" Lady Jaenelle turned from Prince Chaosti to look at Sadi who pointed at Brian.

"His psychic scent is a bit off. I don't know what to make out of it; it's not tainted, just off." Sadi answered.

"I agree with Daemon, witch-child," the Lady's father said. So, Brian mused, if the man was also Sadi's father, the Lady had to be Sadi's sister. "There's something familiar about it, but, nevertheless, it makes me feel odd."

Then Lady Jaenelle came and smelled him, too. Even for the resigned Brian that was a bit much; he wanted to snort. Then the woman stepped back and, like his father and brother before, studied him very carefully. If the eyes of the men had felt like dissecting knives, the eyes of Lady Jaenelle felt even more uncomfortable. He had no idea what the woman saw, but he was sure that she saw everything.

"Something familiar you say, Papa," the Lady said cocking one eyebrow. "No wonder. He has the scent of a queen mixed in." Then her smile blossomed. "Mother Night. _The Darkness is merciful."_

Then the Lady turned to look at Daemon Sadi and burst into delighted laughter. Brian agreed with the Lady: Sadi's face was twisted into an expression that was as close to ridiculous as was possible on a perfect face like his. The Lady walked to her brother and kissed him heatedly on the lips.

_Mother Night and may the Darkness be merciful, _Brian thought. If this Lady was Sadi's sister the SaDiablo family was even weirder than he had reason to believe.

"Lady Angelline," Brian whispered in awe. He was looking at the queen who commanded the respect of all the people in Kaeleer. Brian assumed that Lady Angelline had a father/daughter-like relationship with her husband's father.

"I don't mind giving you a laugh or two every now and then, my Lady," Sadi responded, "but may I remind you that the person we are talking about is a male. A male cannot be a queen."

"Apparently the truth about that has changed, Prince," Lady Angelline said with a smug smile on her lips. "It seems that the Darkness has granted another heart's dream, Daemon," she then went on very softly.

Daemon, his father and Prince Chaosti stared at her a moment, and then all of them turned to Brian.

"A heart's dream," Saetan said again studying Brian, "but whose dream, witch-child? For whom could he have been sent?"

"Maybe for those who have had no queen to bond to," Sadi said thoughtfully. "For a Blood male it is hard to live without that bond. I should know."

"The men of his own kind," Prince Chaosti said slowly. "Could he be the queen for those who cannot bond with a female queen?"

"There's only one person who can answer that question, I think," Lady Angelline said and turned to Cynric. "What's your name?" She went on as soon as she got the name. "Well, Cynric Radford. You stood between Brian and an overwhelming threat. Why?"

"He's my friend," Cynric said hesitantly.

"I think he is a bit more than a friend. You're attracted to him, aren't you, Cynric?" Lady Angelline prompted gently. "You are like him, aren't you, Cynric?"

Cynric nodded once and turned his eyes to ground.

"Does Brian hold your leash, Warlord? Are you his?" the Lady went on with soft relentlessness.

"Yes. I am Brian's," Cynric said and lifted his courage from the ground at the same time with his eyes. He looked at Brian with a hesitant little smile. "I'm yours if you will have me, Brian."

"You, Brian, are easily the queerest queen in all the three Realms," Saetan said chuckling warmly.

Brian fell on his ass queening out completely.

_  
**Duties and Rights** _

As soon as the storm subsided, the party of wet people and animals continued their trip to SaDiablo Hall. There, Lady Jaenelle took Brian to a quick briefing on the main issues of his new duties and rights. The next time Cyn saw Brian, the man had a bewildered and even a bit frightened look in his eyes. Brian led him to a room in which they were offered something to eat and some privacy.

"Cynric, I never even thanked you for your offer to… uh, surrender to me. _Mother Night. _This is so weird."

"You don't need to thank me," Cyn responded, "just tell me already if you accept or not."

Cyn almost laughed out as Brian slammed his hand on the table top. The man was completely out of his game.

"I accept you. Of course I do. You're a good man, but what position would you want? Since you're the only man in my so called court you can pick whichever position you want."

"I think that I will be greedy and take them all. At least for as long as I'm the only one," Cyn laughed. "At the moment I think I'll be acting as your First Escort, if you don't mind, my Queen."

The wine Brian just had sipped came spraying out through his nose.

"Don't call me that," the brand new queen snarled.

"As you command, my Queen," Cyn said in demure tones.

"You're the best ass kisser I've ever met. Drink your wine; you should clean some of the brown from your tongue."

_Well, _Cyn thought, _it didn't take long for the Brian Kinney I know and love to come back._

The men talked about their future late into the evening; Lady Angelline had invited them to stay for the night. Brian told Cyn that Lady Angelline had a place in mind for him to rule. It was a little village that had been abandoned a decade or so ago after a disease had killed nine out of each ten villagers. Cyn told Brian about a man called Emmett Honeycutt in a nearby village. He was pretty sure that Emmett was of their ilk, too. If they wanted a village to rule they would need villagers. Brian told Cyn about the power to heal the land that the female queens had. Lady Angelline had told him that he also would find a healing power in himself, but the Lady had warned him that it might not be the same power as his female counterparts possessed. In general, Brian seemed quite happy with his prospects, even if he complained about some aspects of the life as a ruler and a caretaker. There were compensations, too.

"I think I'll enjoy using at least one of my new rights: the right to take to bed any member of my court I want to," Brian said leering at Cyn as they were walking to the bedroom that had been given to their use for the night. "No more drought of bed partners."

Cyn had not even thought of that particular aspect of his new duties and rights as a member of Brian's court. He couldn't say that he had anything against the duty of warming Brian's sheets.

"As you command, my Queen," Cyn said in lustful tones.


End file.
